The fish’s tongue,
Its vessels severed,
Rots and falls away
And Cymothoa exigua
Grafts itself in place.
It wriggles one way
Taking note
It wobbles up and down
It makes a dance that seems like speech
And becomes its master’s sound
And when the school of fish consumes
Exigua-serving lies
They can see the world’s truth
With Cymothoa eyes
The most important election of our lifetimes:
Trump v.BidenHarris.
I remember the excitement
when she took the corpse-president’s place.
But then we were told
nothing would fundamentally change.
Fewer still hoped the killing would stop—
but Amerika did
what Amerika does best:
Genocide. Proletaricide. Anthropocide.
She needed our votes for the crime of crimes—
to damn our souls to everlasting hell
and save the nation’s empty myth
from a faltering husk of a man.
“The fate of the Palestinians is unfortunate,
but we must think first of our families.”
I voted for her.
Claudia de la Cruz.
The working people of Palestine are my family.
I wonder, before mass media,
How God named Light
In the king’s English.
Ecclesiastic hierarchy, sure,
But two men cannot see the same Sun.
And when the printing press came,
How far away was mass literacy?
How long until the masses can read the news?
Martin Luther put each man in front of his own Bible.
How could one book be read by two men?
Today’s stories come from the networks.
Corporate hierarchies, sure,
But we don’t have to read.
The internet knows things for us,
But we can’t read that.
Every textbook read
Teaches us to take pride in your graft
Live for you and we can eat
And hope a few survive as children
They'll endure by tooth and claw
The world is yours, the anthem sings
Said bring you the bread
Clock in clock out pray to the calf
It's dishonorable to cheat
My blood becomes your billions
Your bloody hands stain every vault
All is yours but we have dreams
But guess what we got you instead
Don't bother dodging simple math
All for one was bare deceit
There's one of you, but we are millions
The blade is clean, and sharp, and broad
We'll only keep a headless king.
He leaves work between six and seven every night.
Takes the same route home.
Obeys every traffic sign.
Pays his bills;
No bad checks;
No registered firearms:
The world's most boring human.
He has very nice garbage:
He's not looking for buff.
Rather, meticulous.
Refined.
Anal.
He eats. They linger; she fawns over him.
The busboy,
Over the whine of the vacuum,
Tells him the pair should leave.
She loves the pinched nasally whine of his voice.
Quivering, she asks him to stay and pronounce--
Sensually--
"Passport"
He does.
"You're right we should leave"
He asks if she would like to have breakfast with him.
"Sure. Fine. Whatever."
Foolishly confident, he replies:
"Shall I phone you or nudge you?"
They did not have breakfast.
A computer would never match her with him
You sent a picture today.
You were reminded of me
and you wanted to share the moment.
I listened
to the long stretches
of time
between the reminders
I don’t want to say “goodbye.”
It’s nothing personal.
I don’t want to say “hello,” either.
I’d rather come and go
without the ceremonial recognition of
one another’s presence.
I don’t want to say “good morning,”
and “good night” seems especially grotesque.
Contractual obligation has crossed our paths,
but the meeting of minds sours when politesse
is expected to sweeten the duress.
I’d prefer not to nod my head–
whether up or down–
nor raise my brow in recognition
as we make our daily rounds.
I am intentional about my relationships.
I do not make friends with passersby.
There is a finite amount of air in the world.
I will share mine only when I choose.
Her truck roars angry sounds without a driver
In the wet of night, parked in a spot of mud
And a thicket of weeds and gravel-dirt.
She who had crashed it while it rolled downhill
Lies only close enough to where it was
To blister in the iron breath
Beaten with a burning excruciating
Skin taut and glazed and smooth and cracked
Old and senseless, in her dying mind
The world does not move. She sees only the glow
Nor twisted nor scarred
Nor truck nor flame. Her legs feel the least
Frightened crash she hears the roar
Thirstily consume
Now crackling laughter popping and sharp
Cacophony of roars escaping the jagged-tooth jaw. She weeps
She struggles anew, but still he consumes
In the uncaring night, boiling in the smog,
And dreaming of taking all.
She burns and she prays to be taken–away,
Pleading deliverance of her wasting body.
…She faints the heat becoming too much:
But whether dream or lying light
She vanished. Only scorched Earth remains.
It’s August now, and the stores are gearing up to save the economy
The holidays are coming close and spending has been low
To cure what ails we need to spend, the price of liberty
We are the best, we need the best, as everybody knows
Ghosts and goblins frighten children until they laugh with glee
Throughout the neighborhood they scatter, to every door they go
And bring home treats they went to earn with costumed trickery
But Hind Rajab, phone in hand, cries the tanks are coming close
Thanksgiving next as leaves turn brown and red and orange and fall
The turkey fat and steaming, plucked and stuffed so we can savor
And everyone gives thanks to God, that we could gather one and all
But Nabhan’s bodies in the orchard marred our grace, ungrateful to the Savior
Then Christmas time, with all the snow, and elves and gifts and wonder
Santa Claus, he’s at the mall, with manger scene prospectus
Parents wink and purchase gifts which to the tree go under
But Mohammad Al-Motawaq, that bony babe, should starve; it’s all genetic
Would that some high stationed man with money and a suit
Could find some way to hide from me the children destitute
For their cries are shrill and feral and they break the season’s peace
I don’t feel bad; I’m just annoyed: I want their cries to cease.
I wonder at times
what life might be like
if somebody cared about me
if there were someone I could call
whenever I’m crying
without being a burden
if there were someone I could invite
to a birthday
and expect them to show
I have been made
to feel I must beg
for companionship
I wonder at times
what life might be like
if I believed somebody cared about me
Sophistry and Solipsism in the New Millennium 